Teaching Primary Science Constructively

by Keith Skamp

Teaching Primary Science Constructively helps readers to create effective science learning experiences for primary students by using a constructivist approach to learning.Introductory chapters explain the principles of constructivism and their implications for learning and teaching. Core strategies for the development of science understanding and science inquiry processes and skills are also discussed. Subsequent chapters then provide research-based ideas for implementing a constructivist approach within the key content strands covered in most primary science syllabuses. This substantially revised fourth edition details how constructivist emphases have changed in recent years and explores the implications for learning and teaching. Chapters contain the latest research on learning through student-generated representations, engaging student interest, and focussing on the nature of science, along with ideas on how to integrate these and other processes and topics into teaching sequences. There is an increased emphasis on teaching about OCyscience as a human endeavourOCO throughout, including discussion and examples of socioscientific issues, different OCyways of knowingOCO and science in our everyday lives."

Genres: Education, Teaching

534 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for anyone who wants to teach Primary School science. The first three chapters in the book provide general discussion and advice for teaching primary science. The focus is on constructivism, implementing the Australian Curriculum in Science, and working and thinking scientifically. The remainder of the book is structured into chapters that focus on various topics (such as energy, electricity, materials, weather). The topic chapters is where the book comes into it's own. Each chapter covers the fundamentals of that topic and discusses ways to teach it and alternative conceptions and issues that children have when learning the topic.

[Smitchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I think I will appreciate more when I am actually in the classroom. As it is the book is ok but I found the layout to be repetitive for each subject it goes into the topic and then goes into the common misunderstandings of the students, and then the common misunderstandings in the teaching process, and then the common misunderstandings of the teachers themselves; so in essence you read about very similar things multiple times within a chapter. This might be a good text if you as a teacher are struggling with a specific topic as it gives many case studies and classroom ideas - as a student reading the whole thing cover to cover it gets extremely tedious.